The Big Five

These are the ones that everyone wants to see

Elephant

Elephant Herds Are Female Dominant
The females run and manage the herd at all times. Adult male elephants, called bulls, spend their life apart from the herd and only return when it is time to mate.
The African bush elephant reaches up to 24 feet in length and 13 feet in height
Their Scientific (Latin) Name is “Loxodonta Africana”
The Trunk of the Elephant Has 40,000+ Muscles and Tendons
Elephants Can Run Up to 25 Miles Per Hour
The Elephant’s Ears Are Designed to Keep Them Cool in the Heat
Their Head is a Quarter of Their Body Weight

The majority of the hunting in a group of lions is handled by the females. They will actually use intelligent hunting tactics and work as a group to trap and capture prey they would otherwise not be able to get while hunting on their own. They also use this ‘team approach’ to other activities within the pride.
Young male lions get kicked out of the pride by older males when they reach sexual maturity, at about 2 years old.
When a male lion takes over a pride, it can kill all the lion cubs to bring the pride’s females into heat again.
Lions have a roar that can carry up to 8km (5 miles).
Lions run up to speeds of 80 Kph (50 Mph).
For some reason, the pregnant lioness will give birth to a cub away from the rest of the pride. Then she will proceed to hide the young from everyone else for the following six weeks.

On top of having fast speeds nearing 60 kilometers per hour, you’ll be surprised to learn that leopards can leap up to 6 meters forward (that’s horizontal distance, not vertical, by the way!). That’s more than if a giraffe were to lay down with their neck stretched out!
Leopards are the smallest of the big cats
Full grown and at their largest from nose to rump, however, leopards can grow to be anywhere form about 90 to almost 200 centimeters.
They carry their prey into trees
Their tail is nearly as long as their body
They can see 7 times better in the dark than humans
The English name ‘leopard’ means ‘spotted lion’ in Latin
It was derived from Old French and Latin.

They are one of the most dangerous of the big five because they simply ambush their prey without giving any type of warning signal.
They can be referred to as the mafia, not only because of their strong character but because they never forgive and almost always seek revenge. They have been recorded seeking revenge on someone years after being threatened by them.
The birds you see sitting on the hide of a Cape buffalo are called oxpeckers. They have a symbiotic relationship with the Cape buffalo and remove ticks/insects embedded in their skin.
If you see a lone buffalo bull, it is probably a “dagga boy”. Dagga boys are older bulls who have past their prime and have separated from their heard. They generally spend their days wallowing in mud either alone or with other dagga boys.
The collective noun for buffalo is “herd”, but other terms include “gang” and “obstinacy”.

The White Rhino is not white at all.

The name for this species is believed to have come from either the Afrikaans word ‘wyd’ or the Dutch word ‘wijd’ which actually means ‘wide’ and describes the appearance of wide, square lips of this species.
The Black Rhino is smaller than the White Rhino
A male White Rhino will weigh around 5,000 pounds. The female will weigh about 4,000 pounds
There are four subspecies of the Black Rhino.
Although the name of the Black Rhino is confusing as it is not black, the name was chosen to distinguish it from the White Rhino. The subspecies include the South-Central Rhino, the South-Western Rhino, the East African Rhino and the West African Rhino. The subspecies names relate to the geographic regions these Black Rhinos can be found.